If you read my post, The Maker’s Year, you may understand the name of this post and why I chose it (you can go and read that post here if you would like), if not let me quickly explain.
I have joined a special year long challenge this year, a challenge that encourages me to seasonally make, craft and cook or bake myself through the year. Here are a few pictures of what I got up to in APRIL, which I didn’t get to post anything about.
As the second month of our true Spring here in Switzerland has just begun, it makes sense to think about how the seasons play an influence on our creativity. Think about it like the awakening of a bear. A bear that has been hibernating over the winter and finally all the beautiful flora and fauna have awakened and are starting to bloom and stretch their wings and fly.
If we think about creativity it is sometimes very similar to certain hibernating creatures. When winter comes they tuck into their little homes and settle down for a nice winter’s nap. For me that dorment period generally occurs in the foggy, cold and often wet months of the year, especially November.
Here in Switzerland, it is very difficult to predict the timing of the worst of the winter weather, sometimes it comes earlier, sometimes much later in the year. Often we may have snow as early as September or October and as late as April and May. Though rarely does it stick around. I can usually track my ups and down in creativity by looking at the seasons and the weather they throw our way.
But it is not always good weather that inspires and helps us to be more creative, April played a very cold trick on us. Those of us who live in the flatlands managed to escape the worst of the snow at least for any length of time. I must say I was happy to see it return for the few days it was here in my little Mörschwil.
The statistics tracker on WordPress is an excellent way to see how creatively active I was at least online. Instagram and Facebook are other tools I can use to keep track of how busy I was creatively. More often than not, much of what I do, does not make it on to my blog, even if it is worth blogging about. I have been trying to find a solution to that and I am still working on solving that issue. Usually when I am in one of my creative moments, there is certainly not a lack of material to write about, or things I want to tell you about, and photos are of an abundance.
Unfortunately though posting high quality digital photos takes time to download from my camera to my computer, sort out the useable ones and upload them to first flickr before I can then simply upload them to WordPress.
My most creative photos are generally taken on my Nikon, but that takes a lot of time until I have prepared those photos to be uploaded to WordPress (Please note I do not do any touch ups on my Nikon shots.)
This May I have a lot planned and I am expecting to be able to report a lot as the days go on.
This year I am participating in my first quilt exhibit. Which has required a lot of preparation. Click here to see the flyer in German. I will be publishing the translation shortly here on the blog.
You can read more about it here.
The 6. European Quilt Trienialle (13. April 2016 – 26. June 2016)
The Textile Museum in St. Gallen is also hosting The 6. European Quilt Trienialle. I missed it last time and I will not miss it again!
I have also moved into my new studio so I will be busy with my new (borrowed) sewing maschine and my mini quilt that I am making for my studio.
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So that is the news for this and last month. I hope you will stay tuned to hear about the Halden Quilter quilt show which I visited yesterday and the other quilt show, as well as whatever I get up to this May.
So dear Readers, this is the point that I ask about you, what interesting things did you get up to creatively? Are you similar in that your creativity or creative productivity wanes depending on the season? What is your favorite season and how does it reflect in your creativity? I look forward to hearing from you.
Jodie
Home Sweet Dreaming 
Right now I’ve jumped into soap making with a vengeance and it’s been keeping me from getting my garden planted! 🙂 And finishing quilts. And writing on my blog, lol. I don’t think the seasons really hinder or help, it’s having too many passions and not enough time. Or hands! 🙂
I love all seasons but if I had to choose my least favorite based on how it affects my creativity, I’d go with winter. Sometimes it’s too cold in my sewing room, so I skip on sewing, and go huddle in my wood stove room.
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Hi Jodie,
I am so glad you stopped in to catch up. I love keeping in contact with you. Need to get on your blog again. Sorry!!
Soapmaking. Oh wow, I am tempted by that too. Making something useful by hand and making it pretty. There was an interesting article in my new favorite mag. Daphne’s Diary (Dutch mag in English). I think that point you made about having too many passions is not a bad thing and we should just enjoy that, it is ‘covered’ by the self sufficiency/ sustainable lifestyle goal/road you seem to also be going down. So no problem there, whether it is quilting or cooking or gardening or soap making then great, you are doing something toward self-sufficiency and sustainability. Time seems to run away without me too, every thing is green here, how is it in BC? The wood stove room would probably be my favorite place too.
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